One night in jail had been one night too many. Back home, Ben looked at the papers on his nightstand and considered the mess his life had become. The purpose of this correspondence is to inform you of your immediate termination from employment with Newberg Police Department.
Arrested and booked for felony interfering, it had taken significant legal maneuvering by a court-appointed attorney to secure Ben’s release on his own recognizance and passage back to Wisconsin. Now Ben had his own trial to worry about in addition to Alex’s. His wouldn’t take place for a month or two, and Ben had no idea what his life would look like by then. But the real salt in the wound had come in the form of the person who delivered the documents.
“So, Ben, let me see if I got this straight.” McKenzie had glared through the bars of his jail cell. “You break into Jorgensen’s office, steal your badge and police ID, then come down here and pass yourself off as being on official business. Gotta hand it to you, Ben, you got balls.”
The half-dozen other men in the cell took note of the conversation. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t your new friends know? No worry, boys. As of today, it’s Mr. Sawyer.” McKenzie held the envelope up high for everyone to see.
“Got some official correspondence from the department for you, Benny. I insisted Jorgensen let me make the delivery by hand. On a rush basis.” McKenzie pushed the papers though the bars, and Ben watched them drop to the dirty cement floor.
“You’re fired, you little prick. You’re done.” McKenzie turned to go, flinging his final sentences over his shoulder. “Interfering carries up to eight years in Illinois, Benny. But don’t worry. You’ll still be out way ahead of that murdering bitch wife of yours.”
Fired. Arrested and jailed. Alex headed to prison. What’ll become of Jake?
Though it was still early in the morning, Ben threw back the sheets and got out of bed.
On the brink of losing everything, Ben knew, beyond any doubt, that the answers he needed were locked inside the old man who lay doped up across town. He thought back to the old days with Lars Norgaard. The good years. What was it the old man always used to say back when Ben first started hitting him up about being a cop?
“It’s like working in a sausage factory. People don’t want to know how you make it. They don’t even want to know what goes into it. They just want to buy it with no questions asked.”
True enough. Police work could get ugly. Unconventional, even.
Ben picked up the composite sketch from Danville. He stared at the face of the killer, who had been seen by a half-dozen terrified witnesses. A detective, a good man, was dead. Tia Suarez had been shot to hell. Alex was going on trial for murder.
According to Tia, the man in this picture was the key to it all.
Ben would find him. He’d get answers by any means necessary. He had tried to work within the system, to abide by the rules. But they had taken his badge and gun. They were destroying his family. At this point, all bets were off. Police work could get ugly alright, and at this point ugly was called for.